good stuff in tea

What about all the bad stuff in tea, like the heavy metals and the pesticides?

--scott

Hello Scott, I wonder that too, Maybe we just have to take the good with the bad. Like not using other possibly harmful chemicals to take out the stuff we dont want.. .. But I like to think that in this passion of tea drinking, that As well as getting my "tea fix" any time I want, it is good for me too.. Well rationalizing is human behavior... Jenn Drinking warm matcha, wondering if I will die early because of it, or live a few extra years because of it... Oh yeah it tastes soo goodd...

there are a couple thorough discussion on this topic:

To use pesticides or no pesticides is a trade-off in quality. If you're drinking really good tea, I wouldn't worry about the pesticides. If pesticides were used on the plants, there probably wouldn't be much reside on the tea leaves. Why? Because tea is so gentle. So you could taste the pesticide residue (if there was some) in the tea.

Sure, they might use pesticides like DDT and benzene hexachloride (BHC). But if you're drinking good tea, there shouldn't be anything in there to worry of.

And say, you don't want your teas sprayed with pesticides, (and no other treatment, like organic) - the tea will suffer in quality. Bugs will eat the tea plants, and the leaves will deteriorate in quality, having marks, etc. And this will affect the fragrance and flavor of the finished product.

So... if you want to enjoy really good tea at a reasonable price, then, the tea farmers might have to periodically spray the plants to treat pests.

I wonder what the fresh tea leaves looked like back in the Song Dynasty. Hmmmm............

Speaking of good stuff in tea....

Just for fun, I decided to check exactly what some of the pesticides were used on tea in China.

And the verdict.... It's all good stuff, so drink up!!!

Here's the list:

2005 Maximum Pesticide Residue Allowable Limits for Food Products - Tea Leaf Guidelines

1. ??? Lindane 0.2

1. ??? DDT 0.2
2. ???? Cypermethrin 20
3. ???? Decamethrin 10
4. ????? Orthene 0.1
5. ???? Folithion n/a
6. ????? Flucythrinate 20 (red,green tea)
7. ??? Permethrin 20 (red, green tea)
8. ???? Fenvalerate, Sumicidin n/a
9. ????? Kelthane n/a
10. ??? Acephatemet, Methamidophos n/a

Notes?

1. Numbers indicate maximum allowable limits of pesticide residues in (mg/Kg)
2. n/a: no data available.
3. This standard came into effect on Oct. 1, 2005, effective for 1 year.
4. Don't know what the 2008 standard is, but you can be sure it has changed since then.
5. Of tea samples tested and more than 24 types of pesticide residues were found in various samples. No info on what the other pesticides are.
6. Acephatemet banned from use in China January, 2004.

I will leave you guys to check on your own what each of these pesticides are, and their potential health effects, etc. One other point I should make though, is that this is 2005. That's ancient history now. Now, because of stringent Japanese and EU import restrictions, the tea business has changed in China, and some of these pesticides are perhaps no longer used. But even tea farmers themselves are often not clear which pesticides can be used on tea plants. And some pesticide containers are sometimes not clearly marked, or have prohibited ingredients mixed in - which confounds the problem.

Someone once said they wished there was an easy way to test for pesticides in tea. Apparently there is:

In case you're wondering: mg/Kg is the same as ppm (parts per million). I'm assuming those tests would be done on dry leaves. If you made a tea infusion, the residual amounts of pesticides should be less.

Also, since July, 2003, the EU set limits for pesticide residues in tea at 0.01 ppm (or 0.01 mg/Kg). It was a much more stringent standard than what was in in place in China. As a result, some teas for export did not meet that standard. So that left tea producers who rely on tea exports to meet the standard.

The 2005 standards above are for tea sales inside Mainland China. Now, the government and tea prodcuers are working hard to meet the more stringent standards, like those of the EU. So things can only get better.

Standards in China are questionable compared to requirements here in the US. Shen

It seems it's not about Chinese producers being negligent. It seems, rather it's a difference in regulations - both inside China, and internationally. In China, you got federal regulations, provincial regulations, and even industry regulations. That all makes everything so complicated and confusing. Then there are international standards that must be adhered to. So that makes everything different. Apparently the EU brought on these regulations suddenly, and caught Chinese producers off-guard. Now, if they want to export, they have to forget about any Chinese standards, and implement stricter EU standards.

And it seems that previous standards were internationally recognized ones. If you look at the Codex Alimentarius, you can see various standards for pesticide residues:

And here are the MRLs for tea as set in the Codex Alimentarius:

0&out_style=by+item&Domain=PesticideMRLs&Language=english&query_form=%2Fmrls%2Fpestdes%2Fpest_q-e.htm

Well I think what the person who posted that comment might have been referring to (at least in part) is the corruption (and ease of forging documents or lying about a tea's origin) prevalent in China. You're probably in a better place than I am to tell how true that is, but my understanding is that it's pretty easy to either forge documents or bribe officials (or simply mislead them) with the organic regulations in a lot of parts of China.

As in the US, standards like USDA and the EU standards are a mixed bag. They are theoretically pretty stringent, which helps a little bit with ensuring that the standards mean something and that consumers know what they're getting into, but they favor large producers and make it much more difficult for small operations to compete. The fact that they typically require a transitional period where no pesticides are used helps ensure that there aren't residual pesticides in the ground.

If you're buying locally, it makes sense to know your farmers, and trust that they're telling you the truth about their farming methods... however, for those of us in the US buying tea produced in other countries, that's difficult because the tea passes through a lot of hands, and any of those people can easily lie or pass on a lie. Even when buying directly from the producer, and even if you've visited the place where the tea is grown, it's never really possible to know for sure unless you're watching the tea every minute of every day.

Unfortunately (and possibly for some of the reasons mentioned), most of the certified organic tea I've had has not been very tasty. I try to just go by a tea's taste and how it makes me feel. Also, if there are bug bites, that's usually a good sign (and for Oriental Beauty, they're actually necessary).

btw, there have been a couple of long threads about pesticides and toxins in tea. The two I remember are the two starting with message-ids

. Worth a read for those who didn't read them the first time around.

Ankit mentioned (in one of those threads) the possibility of doing tests of samples if anyone wanted to send him some. However, he said they need about 250g of leaf to do the tests, which definitely dampened my enthusiasm... most of the teas I like enough to want to test, I don't want to give up 250g of.

w